Brocolli, Leek and Stilton Soup (W.W)

So ... we're on weight watchers in our household - hence the lack of blogs - i have been trying to avoid thinking about food so as not to eat it ALL !!

Here's a little weight watchers soup for you with cheese !! my favourite ingredient that makes me feel like i've been cheating when i haven't.

So simple ...

Heres what you need:

1.5 tbs Olive Oil
3 Large Leeks
1 Courgette
1 Broccoli
10 new potatoes (I used 7 pro points worth of potatoes in total)
2 vegetable stock cubes
1.5 litres of boiling water
120g Stilton

Use a large saucepan, and heat your olive oil, and add your 3 leeks chopped up.
Whilst they are cooking down, cut up your courgettes, and throw them in, keep them on a medium heat, but keep stirring until they are well softened and going golden.
Cut your potatoes into smaller chunks and add them
then make your stock and add that
bring it to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins
take it off the heat and crumble your stilton over the soup
after about 10 minutes blend our soup, i use a hand blender, and whizz it for ages to make sure theres no lumps ...
it makes a really really thick soup so you can always add extra water but i love a nice thick soup.
feels like i'm being really naughty ... creamy and rich ... and it's got cheese ...

if you split it between 6 it works out at 4 pro points each !!! Get it !!

Creole Christmas Cake ... YUM !!

So this year I decided ... it is my first Christmas in my new home, my first Christmas ever in my own home; I am going to do this properly!

Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, Mince pies, Home-made Stuffing Terrine to go with the Turkey and roast potatoes and roast parsnips and brussel sprouts and yorshires and gravy and all the other masses of gorgeousness that we shove on our plates on Christmas day !! :) 

Home-made of course ... well I'm going to try ... I'm doing dinner for 7 people so it's probably going to be half and half ... shop bought some bits ... the Christmas pudding is one of those things ... I'd love to attempt my own ... maybe next year ... I don't know ... but there is too much going on this year to be able to do that too! 

What I am making home-made is the Christmas cake! 

I am following Delia this year. 

I stumbled upon this wonderful recipe at my friend Evelyn's house in France. She was my English neighbour and we became good friends. She absolutely swore by it. And me vary wary of traditional Christmas cake tried it and was won over instantly! This is how much her and her husband like this cake ... they make it in April and she makes about 8 and stores them wrapped up in the cellar. They eat them all throughout the year now! 

I'm not quite that bad and I followed Delia's recipe closely which was no feeding and said only make it a month before. 

Here's the link for Delia's recipe ... mix it up this Christmas ... try Creole instead of traditional ... It's moist and lighter and totally transforms the traditional heavy stodgy in your face insane bitter flavour of the traditional! 

Delia's Creole Christmas Cake

Try it and let me know what you think !! 

Mine is baked and stored away ready for icing just before Christmas ... you will have to wait until then to see the finished product ... 

Chipotle Chicken Pizza

I love saturdays ... it means I have time to think about what I want for dinner, get ahead of the game and "pootle" round my kitchen slowly!! 

My lovely man had been out at church all day serving at a wedding so I wanted to do him something I knew he would really love for when he got in. 

That's where the home-made pizza came in ... pizza is his favourite thing. Normally we have shop bought as we both work full time. But home-made is just the best. So much better for you and you can control the ingredients so you know what's in it and you can definitely knock off a few hundred calories off the numbers on a shop bought pizza which to be honest are just scary. 

So then it came to choosing flavours ... I wanted chicken and I wanted flavour. 

I had a bottle of Chipotle Sauce kicking around in the fridge so I marinated 2 chicken breasts and whacked them in the over for 35 mins on 200 degrees. Once cooked, I then shredded the chicken into small pieces. 

I did buy the packet pizza dough, but it's so nice and fairly low cal so I always cheat with the pizza dough. So I made that up as per the instructions and let it prove for a few minutes to rise. 

I used tomato puree as the base and spread probably about a tablespoon on to the dough. 

I then threw my chipotle chicken on top and added rings of red onion and sweetcorn (I used a small red onion and about 2 tablespoons of sweetcorn - but really you can put as much or as little on as you want). 

I covered it all with a handful of mature cheddar cheese, it has a fairly strong flavour so you don't need loads and loads. 

It was utterly delicious and the perfect feast for a Saturday night in front of the rugby. 

Holiday Food

So ... i have been meaning to share with you the absolute gorgeous plates of food i was served up on a recent trip to Aix en Provence !!

Enjoy x 

Goats Cheese Salad ... french style

Caramelised Apple Crepe with Chantily Creme and Vanilla Ice Cream ... HEAVEN!

Slow cooked Lamb Shank with ratatouile and creamy mash ...

A wonderful holiday ... with wonderful food and wonderful wine ... I am blessed !!

simple bakes for crazy lives ... fat free apricot tea loaf

mmmm i must start with an apology ... again !! 2 months have practically gone by and i have given you one whole blog !! Wowza !! anyway ... life is fairly hectic ... and i have done loads of cooking and i've got photos for blogs coming out my ears ... but actually sitting down here to blog seems fairly rare ... 

This one is a hugely simple and easy to do recipe (I can remember the recipe in my head and am blogging from my desk at work its that easy). You just need to be in to have the oven time and soaking time, but the actual method is easy !! 

One absolutely gorgeous moist tea loaf ... making it your own as well is so simple, you can used spiced tea's or different fruit. Generally i use raisins or mixed ... my mum tried it not so long ago with a chai tea ...

See mums recipe 

but this is a long standing family recipe ... fat free but lets be honest with the amount of sugar thats in this bad boy we can't really claim it's a healthy bake !! lol The diet goes out the window again !!

heres what you do ...

use a mug to measure all your ingredients ...
preheat the oven to gas 4//180 degrees

Firstly take a mug of fruit (raisins, mixed dried fruit, apricots, dried cherries)
pour it into a mixing bowl
Then measure a mug full of sugar and stick it in the same bowl
(I actually found it a little sweet last time so next time i would use maybe 3/4 of a mug of sugar)
Then make black tea in the same mug (do not use milk), boil it up then let it brew for a few minutes and add to the bowl
leave to soak for at least 30 mins
rinse and leave the mug to dry at this point

pop off and do a bit of shopping or some ironing ... then ...

add to the bowl (using the same dry mug) 2 mugs full of self raising flour
and 1 egg ...
Mix ...

Stick into a greased loaf tin ... and bake for about an hour ... it really will depend on what you've put in there, so keep your eye on it and check with a skewer to check it is cooked through.
If not ... leave it in for a few more minutes ... it's so moist it won't dry out unless you bake it for ages ... so don't be worried about leaving it for a few more minutes ...

et voila ... one squishy fruity tea loaf ... ready for your family to scoff (Oh and did i mention - it's fat free !! LOL)

One Big Welly !! ... Pork Stuffing and Bacon Wellington

so heres a great one for you !! a total experiment that turned out a winner !!

particularly simple to do as well ... 

well simple if you do a few cheats like me (i bought ready to roll puff pastry and it was packet stuffing rather than homemade) 

but yeh - just assembly really ... and this is what i did ... 

1) I seared my pork tenderloin for a few mins, just to brown it off.

2) I then cut the fat off of about 8 slices of bacon (use as little or as much as you like, i was finishing off a pack i had in the fridge - i used unsmoked) and wrapped my tenderloin. 

3) I made the stuffing - slightly dryer than the packet suggested and laid it out on greaseproof paper. I laid my tenderloin on top and wrapped the tenderloin. My stuffing was slightly too short, so i could have done with making the stuffing layer slightly thinner so it completely coated the outside. Mary Berry would not have been impressed, because the bacon was touching the pastry it has a soggy bottom! (also, do not use a fruity stuffing, the pastry will not enjoy the fruit and will suck up the moisture)

4) I then baked my stuffing coated on 220 degrees for about 20 mins so that the stuffing felt crispy. 

5) I then left my tenderloin to cool completely, this is very very important else your pastry will steam whilst cooking if the filling is hot, and then it won't crisp. 

6) Roll out the pastry so that you have a "thinnish" layer of pastry, it needs to be longer than the tenderloin by   a fee inches either side and wide enough to be wrapped around the whole thing. 

7) I then baked it in he over for about 40-45 mins on 190 degrees, keep your eye on it though, cooking time will depend on size and thickness of pastry. 

 * when using pork you must make sure it is well cooked, I sliced my wellington straight through the middle before serving to check this, it is a good idea to make sure it is well on it's way to being cooked at the first bake, whilst baking the stuffing then it can just finish off whilst the assembled wellington is cooking. 

this dish does take a while but it is really rewarding ... tastes amazing, and theres a pretty good sense of achievement that comes with. 

Turkey and Chorizo Chilli

Recipe ...

441g Turkey breast (cubed)

120g Chorizo (diced)

1 onion

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic (or minced garlic)

1 tsp paprika

1 tbsp hot chipotle bbq sauce

1/4 tsp lazy chillis

2 cups stock

200g drained chick peas 

1 cup chopped mixed peppers

285g sweetcorn

heat your oil in a wok/large saucepan

brown off your turkey in a wok then after a few minutes add the chorizo

then lower the heat, add the onions and fry off slowly

add the peppers 

add the garlic and herbs, the sauce, then the stock

add the chickpeas

simmer for about 20 mins

then add the sweetcorn for about 5 minutes to heat through

serve with rice and maybe some sour cream and lime wedges

 I've got a big load of this stocked away in the freezer for a cold winter evening when i can't be bothered to cook anything ... can't wait!